We started off the Halloween season with the usual Larchmont window decorating!  This year the kids painted one of the windows at Wasabi.

Here it is!  A zombie pumpkin, I believe!

One weekend we drove out to Twin Ponds on the Farm in Montgomery, NY, for my favorite fall activity — the corn maze!  This one was 7 acres and took us about 45 minutes with one stop for snack.

We also got a great deal on pumpkins — they were all $5!  No matter the size.

And I finally got the apple cider donuts I’d been craving.

This year for Halloween, Sarah wanted to be Link from Breath of the Wild!  The cute little ears wouldn’t stay on so this was the only time she wore them.

Blaine dressed up as a red ninja (based on the red ninja from Ninjago).

The Chatsworth Halloween parade went forward as planned this year!  This was the first time Sarah was able to walk in the parade — in Kindergarten it was rained out, and in 1st grade it was cancelled for the pandemic!

The day before Halloween we carved our pumpkins!

Blaine also got these little water gel beads called “Orbeez” which he wanted to use to make stress balls with balloons.  The plan was to sell them in a stand on the sidewalk as an alternative to lemonade but we haven’t gotten past production.

Here are the kids all dressed up on Halloween night!  We went trick or treating with our neighbors this year and visited a lot more houses than we did two years ago!  So much candy.

Blaine started off his 9th birthday with some chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.

For dinner he wanted Walter’s hot dogs and fries.  Sarah was disappointed that there was a curly fry shortage going on!

Then Blaine opened presents!

For dessert he wanted a Bona Bona chocolate/chocolate ice cream sandwich.

On Saturday team USA got another win, and Coach Jeanne arranged for the Mister Softee truck to come to the field after the game was over so the whole team could have ice cream.

On Sunday Sarah turned 7!  She started the day with waffles, and then wanted to open all her presents so she could play with them.  She was very excited to get this gigantic Lego Ninjago set she’s wanted since last Christmas.

It was a rainy day so in the afternoon Sarah wanted to watch the first Harry Potter movie.  She also wanted to keep the entire bowl of popcorn for herself.

For dinner she requested filet mignon, plain bread, and crispy cauliflower.  We don’t have much red meat anymore so it was really a treat!

Then she asked for homemade yellow cake with chocolate frosting for dessert.  We made the 1234 yellow cake and chocolate satin icing from Joy of Cooking.

She finished this Ninjago dragon set before her birthday was over!

Blaine has been very anti-Harry Potter and would go to great lengths to avoid hearing the read-aloud of the first book that we’ve been doing with Sarah at bedtime.  But his curiosity got the better of him and he caught the end of the movie that afternoon, and then got so interested in what was going to happen he went right into book 2.  I think he must have been scared of Voldemort because he proceeded to skim the entire series, skipping to the endings of each book to find out what would happen.  I wouldn’t say he’s read the whole series at this point, but at least he’ll be familiar when his friends are talking about it from now on.

On Monday the kids had off from school and we hosted three of Blaine’s friends for a small birthday gathering for a Shake Shack lunch, video games, and ice cream sundaes.

It only took Sarah a few days to finish her giant Ninjago lego set, with 10 bags.  She said she would have finished faster if she didn’t have to go to school.

Here’s Sarah with another new friend over for a playdate that week.

The big birthday present was this giant climbing dome for the backyard.

We made good use of it for Sarah’s small birthday gathering with two friends on Sunday, 10/17.  Sarah wanted pizza for lunch, followed by legos (of course), and then homemade cupcakes for dessert.

We were glad that we were able to celebrate the kids’ birthdays with friends despite the circumstances, and it felt good to keep the parties small to limit the exposure to germs.  It’s hard to believe they are 7 and 9!

The schools have been testing all the kids weekly for covid, but that hasn’t stopped other germs going around!  The kids caught their first cold in a long while in October and had to take a few days off school to contain the germs and get more PCR tests (negative!).  There have been two covid cases in Sarah’s class, though, so we are still on high alert!  Here’s Blaine on one of his days at home, making an elaborate drawing of a coral reef.

Andrew bought me some beautiful dahlias from the farmer’s market on 10/2, our wedding anniversary.  Dahlias were the main flowers in my wedding bouquet!  We had to cancel our dinner plans since the kids were both sniffly but we still had a nice celebration at home.

Another day the kids and I went back to Rye Nature Center and we built another fort from sticks.

We stopped at Milk and Cookies in Mamaroneck for a treat and took our snack into Harbor Island to look at the boats and the swans.